Loved I Not Honor More
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, epilogue-compliant also HPGW, DMAG, DMOMC . Draco knew that Harry couldn't resist the attraction growing between them. What he forgot about was the Gryffindor sense of principle.


**Title: **Loved I Not Honor More

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco (also Harry/Ginny, Draco/Astoria, Draco/OMC)

**Warnings: **Heavy angst, profanity, (slash) sex, mentioned het, epilogue-compliant, infidelity.

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **Draco knew very well, when he and Harry became Auror partners, that the attraction growing between them couldn't be resisted forever—and never mind the fact that they were both married. What he forgot about was the Gryffindor sense of principle.

**Author's Notes: **The title comes from Richard Lovelace's poem, "To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars": "I could not love thee, dear, so much,/ Loved I not honor more."

**Loved I Not Honor More**

Draco stepped slowly into the office and shut the door behind him. He looked at its panels attentively, running a hand over the smooth wood. Of course, he could do that because he _knew _what he would see when he turned around, and the anticipation made that moment all the sharper.

When he thought he had absorbed all he could of the wood and the sturdy construction of the door, down to the hinges, he turned around.

Potter stood over his own desk, apparently examining paperwork there. It would take a close observer to realize that the muscles in his back and shoulders were bent almost to the snapping point, or to listen to his breathing and realize it rushed just a bit faster than normal.

"Potter," Draco said, and the word felt odd and awkward in his mouth, even though he'd said it every day for the six years they'd been partnered. He shook his head and changed it for the word they both knew was coming. "Harry."

_Ah. Much better. _The name dragged itself off his tongue like slow honey and filled the air between them with that same sweetness. It jerked at Harry's head and half-pulled him around. Draco shut his eyes and moaned at the look of desperate desire on Harry's face.

_Six years. Six years this has been coming. _Draco could hardly stand up, he was so hard, and his mind whirled with images. Harry slumped asleep on his desk after a particularly hard day, trusting Draco to see him as vulnerable as that, but waking instantly if someone else stepped into the office. Harry stroking his hair when he thought Draco had fallen asleep himself on a long shadowing mission and it was his turn to take the watch. Their wrists brushing accidentally and their hands and eyes unable to part for long moments. Harry sitting helpless and bolt upright in his chair as Draco ate ice cream, his eyes following every swirling motion of Draco's tongue.

Draco swallowed back the saliva that threatened to choke him and moved a step forwards.

Harry at once ducked behind his desk, as if he were fighting Death Eaters and one of them had fired a curse at him. He shivered all over, though, which Draco knew from experience he didn't do in battle. "No," he whispered. "Malf—Draco. Stop."

"I can't," Draco said. He had almost no voice left. Hearing Harry speak his name like that, as if he were about to faint when he did it, had stolen most of his strength. He didn't want to talk. He wanted to fuck, and from the way Harry looked more than once at the paperwork scattered on their desks, he was trying to find the best surface for it, too. "You know that as well as I do." It was hard keeping his thoughts in order for the sentence. With relief that he'd finished, he took a single long stride forwards, reached out, snagged the collar of Harry's robe, and hauled him into a kiss.

It was not what he'd been imagining. It was _better, _sending sparks exploding through his body. Harry sobbed and arched into him, his hands suddenly firm on Draco's shoulders, and Draco shuddered. He twisted sideways so that he could align their erections.

_Perfect and better than perfect. _The merest touch caused him to shake and fight to get further away and closer at the same time, as if someone were tickling him. Pleasure made him drop backwards, on top of the reports that Harry hadn't had the time to clear out of the way.

_Well, I don't care, now. They'll get crushed or crumpled, and we'll have to rewrite them, and I don't care. _Draco tugged at Harry's robes, forcing them down his shoulders, and pulled at his shirt, intent on getting him naked. Whatever hesitation Harry might be feeling right now—though Draco didn't know how it could exist, after the intensity that ran through him like a tsunami—Draco knew it would vanish when their skin touched.

Harry moaned, rubbing back and forth with maddening slowness against Draco's erection. Then he reached down into himself, got hold of some strength or stubbornness that Draco never knew existed, and wrenched free.

Draco lay still for a moment. He wasn't an idiot; he knew what had happened. But the loss of Harry's body left him stunned.

He sat up, slowly, making no attempt to push his hair out of his eyes. Harry _should _look at him disheveled and have to test his resolve that way. Draco spread his legs, and Harry's gaze darted to his crotch with a look of appreciable hunger and then away.

_So it's not that he doesn't want this. _Draco used the knowledge to keep his voice normal instead of a scream when he asked, "What are you doing?"

Harry closed his eyes and simply breathed for long moments. Since his breathing was as loud and hoarse as a dragon's panting, though, and his face was already mottled with a brilliant flush, and the line of his cock remained prominent beneath the cloth, Draco didn't think it calmed him down much.

"You knew this was coming," Draco said. It amazed him that he could sound so reasonable. Of course, if he sounded hysterical, then he might chase Harry off, and then they might never have sex, and that was _not _acceptable. "We _are _going to fuck, Harry. If you don't know that, you've been blind for the past six years."

"I want you," Harry breathed.

It was the first open confession Draco had ever heard him make. His hips pumped forwards, and there was a long, urgent, deliciously confusing moment when he didn't know if he would come in his pants or not.

He caught control of himself in an iron grip, and murmured, "Come and take me."

Harry moved a step forwards like someone under the Imperius Curse, then shook his head and opened his eyes. They were glazed, but, to Draco's deep frustration, not glazed enough to show that Harry had given in and let his instincts take over.

"You had the chance to run away before this," Draco pursued, irritated beyond measure. _Does he really think that I'm going to let him walk out of this room without having him flat on his back or inside me at least once? _"You could have taken it. That means you want what we're going to do. And at this point, if you still think it's not going to happen, then you're blind. Like I said." He licked his lips, delighted with the way that Harry's eyes followed his tongue.

"I _have _been blind," Harry muttered. "And weak. And stupid." He took a breath so deep that it sounded as if all the air were escaping from a hole in his back, and shook his head again. "But no more."

Draco drove his nails into the desk. He'd hardly realized until this moment that he'd crooked his fingers into claws. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"That I should have stepped back a long time ago," Harry said, his voice a murmur. "That I should have remembered we're both married. We both have children—_young _children. We both have vows and commitments to other people. I know how I would feel if Ginny cheated on me. I can't cheat on her."

"You should have thought about this before," Draco snapped. Disappointment so bitter he couldn't comprehend it was stuck through his chest now, like an arrow. "And Astoria and I have an open marriage."

Harry gave a smile that Draco thought was supposed to be wise and bitter. It just looked incredibly stupid to him. "Well, Ginny and I don't."

Draco leaped up from the desk, grabbed Harry's shoulders, and drove him backwards into the wall. Harry tried to hit out at him, but Draco seized his wrists in one hand and pinned them to the wall above his head. Never looking away from the blazing, furious green eyes, he drove his groin into Harry's.

"_Ah,_" Harry said. His hands flexed open and shut in Draco's grip. He tilted his head back and bit his lip, as though that would bring him to his senses.

But he didn't break away. And Draco knew enough about both his physical strength and his wandless magic to know he could have.

Instead, he began to thrust forwards. Draco snarled in satisfaction and met the thrusts, hardly letting Harry get any momentum going before he pushed him back into the wall again.

Harry's scent, heavy and sweaty, surrounded him. Harry's breath traveled along the side of his face. Harry's body shuddered beneath him, and Draco thought again of how long he'd admired that body, how he'd watched Harry's muscles twitch and his eyes widen and his cock swell for years…

He came with a shout, the orgasm punching him in the middle of the back and the stomach and pulsing out in a sticky, triumphant rush across his thighs and robes and Harry's thighs and robes. He went on pushing mindlessly, and Harry shuddered and came hard. Draco caught his lips in a kiss as he did.

_He'll never be able to come again without thinking of the taste of me, _he thought, tangling his tongue viciously around Harry's so that it couldn't make some incoherent protest.

Harry stood still when Draco released him, letting Draco keep his tongue in his mouth, but not responding to the kiss. At last Draco stepped back with an exclamation of disgust.

"You consented to that," he said, narrowing his eyes at the man who stood slumped against the wall as if this experience had broken him. "I didn't force you to do it. You could have stopped me, or walked out of the office."

"Yes," Harry said, his voice curiously hollow. "I could have."

Draco rolled his eyes and turned to gather up his own paperwork. Obviously, Harry needed some time to come to terms with how inevitable this was—how it would happen again and again, because their attraction was simply too strong to be ignored.

"I'll work in Holbrook's office for today," he said. "You can have all the space you need to think about this." _Though how he can care about anything but how sated his body is…_

He stepped out of the office and performed a few quick Cleaning Charms to remove the wetness from his crotch and the smell of sex from his skin. He was already smiling by the time he started walking down the corridor to Holbrook's office. No matter what Harry's strange attack of reluctance meant, that had been worth it.

*

Harry sat with his head in his hands for long moments when Draco had gone.

_It wasn't his fault. It was yours. He's the one with the open marriage, the honest attraction, the one who has every reason for approaching this. _

_You're the one who cheated on Ginny. You're the one who broke your word. _

Harry swallowed. For long moments, he felt as if the pain would flay him alive, and then remembered that flayed people died and he wasn't that lucky. He would have to live with this pain, and accept it, and do what he should have done long ago, when he realized that his attraction to Draco was growing. He'd foolishly trusted his strength. He couldn't be trusted.

He stood up, walked over to the fireplace that connected their office with Kingsley Shacklebolt's, and threw in a handful of Floo powder. Meanwhile, the guilt continued to bang a drum in the back of his head, and Harry saw Ginny's face streaked with tears when she heard about this—because of course he would have to tell her—and James staring at him like he was a stranger, and Al reaching out for him with arms that were still soft with baby fat.

_I would have hurt them all so much, and for what? An orgasm?_

When Kingsley's head appeared in the flames, Harry found it hard to speak around his self-loathing, but he managed. "I told you that I'd never ask for a favor unless I really needed one," he said quietly. "And now I do."

Kingsley stared at him, then gave a small nod. "I'm listening."

*

Draco came into work the next morning with a smile on his face, nodding at the people who greeted him along the way, even stopping to chat with Holbrook, whom he normally avoided. All the time, he could feel the pull to his own office, where Harry waited, growing. This was a delaying tactic just like studying the door of the office had been. The more time he spent at it, the sweeter it would be when he finally saw Harry again.

But the moment came when he couldn't take any more of Holbrook's vague reminiscences, and excused himself with the bare minimum of politeness to hurry down the corridor.

When he opened the office door, he was expecting many expressions on Harry's face, from resignation to sternness to smiling patience. The likeliest was that Harry would give him some kind of lecture about how they could never be together again. Draco already knew that he would kiss any and all of those expressions away.

What he _didn't _expect was for Harry to not be there at all.

Draco halted and looked around, baffled. Harry hadn't been late in five years, since he got over his newlywed period with the She-Weasel. And he would have sent an owl to let Draco know if he was sick, weak and pathetic excuse though it would have been.

Then he realized more was wrong than that. Harry's desk was gone, too, and his collection of photographs and commendations on the wall. Draco caught a faint smell of pine, and thought that a cleaning spell had been used to remove the traces of his scent.

Slowly, Draco walked over to his desk. Had they moved his office? Had Harry _demanded _that he be placed with someone else, someone whom he wouldn't desire?

But that made Draco hiss sharply through his teeth and shake his head. Harry wasn't a fool enough to abandon what they had together. They were efficient and effective Aurors. They had shared a casual camaraderie that ran alongside their attraction to one another and deepened it. Harry lacked the selfishness to run away from that. In fact, sometimes Draco thought Harry's main fault was his _lack_ of selfishness.

He found a note on his desk, and unfolded it eagerly. No doubt it would explain that Harry had been temporarily partnered with someone else because of an emergency on a case that needed his talents. Then Draco could figure out where Harry would have gone and be leaning "casually" against the wall when he came out.

The note was in the Minister's handwriting, however, and not Harry's. And the words it contained shattered Draco's hopes as no temporary partnership could have done.

_Auror Malfoy, at Auror Potter's request I have transferred him overseas. He feels that his talents would be better employed there, and he is concerned about his children being adversely affected by his celebrity if he remains in Britain. He has praised your skills highly to me, so you need not fear that this transfer reflects on you. A new partner will be found for you as soon as possible. _

And that was all. No hint of where Harry had gone, and no farewell from him, no matter how many times Draco turned the note over or cast spells on it that should have revealed hidden ink or codes.

He let the parchment flutter down, staring at it.

Then his black numbness shattered into rage, and he stormed out of his office and towards the Minister's.

Usually he had to wait at least a few minutes before he saw the Minister, but this time Shacklebolt rose to his feet and nodded to him the moment he opened the door. No one else was in the office, and Draco recognized the hum of charms that would ward off eavesdroppers. "Auror Malfoy," said Shacklebolt. "You have something to say to me."

He looked so _calm_, as if he knew what Draco would say already, and was equally prepared to disregard it. Draco lost his temper even more thoroughly.

"I want to know where he is," he snarled, taking a step forwards. "I want to know why you granted his request when he didn't follow official channels. _Transfer overseas,_" he said in a vicious, high-pitched voice. "I'll have to train with a new partner—all my plans for advancement will be affected—I should have been told about this a long time ago if Potter was really contemplating it—"

His voice said all the words he needed said, but his mind was reeling and crying out in a different tone. _Harry, you coward, you bastard, how could you leave me like this? _

The Minister just went on watching him, quiet and patient, until Draco stuttered to a stop. Then he said, "It is my understanding that Auror Potter's decision was sudden, although he'd been contemplating it for some time. For whatever reason, he felt it best if he did not stay to say goodbye."

Draco looked up sharply. The Minister's eyes held a glint of suspicion, though Draco knew he would never voice it aloud. _I don't think Harry told him, either. _

But _still._

"I want to know where he is," Draco snapped. "I at least deserve the right to question him myself."

"Ah," said Shacklebolt. "But if one person knows, others may. Harry specifically asked me not to give that information to anyone who doesn't have the last name of Weasley."

Draco drove his fingers into his palms. "How dare you," he whispered. "More than half a decade of working with him, and you think I would betray him to the papers?"

"Harry had the right to demand any favor he wanted to ask," Shacklebolt said. "And he never did. He told me he might, when the time came, and he wanted no questions if it did. And last night, he asked me."

He said no more, but his eyes retained that sharp glint. It was plain enough that he thought Draco was the cause of Harry's going.

Draco drove his fingers deeper. His mind and his stomach were both whirling in a tumult of emotions.

He knew that he would get nothing more from Shacklebolt. And he had never ingratiated himself with the Weasleys, despite his years of working with Harry. He hadn't seen any need to. _Harry _was his interest, that beautiful body and those green green eyes.

_Which are gone. You'll never see him again, never touch him again. _

Draco took a deep breath and forced his eyes open. He might have a breakdown about this, but it wasn't going to be in front of the Minister.

"Thank you for letting me know," he said with strained formality.

Shacklebolt nodded back. "As I said in my letter, this does not reflect on your performance, Auror Malfoy. You will be partnered with an experienced Auror, to save you the time and tedium of training a new one."

Draco murmured something that Shacklebolt could think was gratitude, if he wanted to be stupid, and escaped. When he arrived back in the office, he sat down behind his desk and put his head in his hands.

He didn't weep. The pain ran too deep for tears, a throbbing ache between his groin and his shoulders, as if he had been hauling a heavy burden uphill and seen the traces snap at the last moment.

*

_There he is. _

A hand came down on Draco's shoulder, massaging gently. "What is it?" Jason's voice whispered into his ear, full of heat and tenderness. "You've gone all tense." His voice dipped further and assumed a light teasing note. "I hadn't thought you were _that _upset about sending Scorpius off to Hogwarts."

Draco let his head fall back to rest on his lover's shoulder. "Not tense about that," he murmured. "I just saw a boyhood rival over there, that's all."

Jason looked past his shoulder and chuckled. "Oh-ho! Harry Potter himself. Well, they did say that he wanted to educate his children in England. I think his eldest boy went to Hogwarts last year." Jason's voice was light and dashing, careless. He had never learned about Draco's aborted love affair with Harry, and Draco wanted to keep it that way.

He'd had a good life, the past ten years, with Astoria and Jason, Draco thought, his own mind skipping about from memory to memory like Jason's words. They liked each other, his wife and his lover. Scorpius had been a bit upset at first when he found out that his family wasn't like other pure-blood families, but in time he came to accept it and take pride in the difference. It was better, he'd confided to Draco, to have parents who accepted each other's tastes than to live in a family like the Parkinson-Goyles, where Pansy and Greg got into constant raging fights.

He'd had a good life.

Which meant the ache invading his lower belly now, and gnawing at his vitals, made even less sense.

Harry looked unchanged by their ten years apart except for a few wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and a touch of grey in his hair. His skin was tanned from the sun of wherever they'd been living. His words had a faint trace of an accent as he called to his children—three, now—to stay together and keep an eye on the time. Draco wouldn't let himself concentrate and try to figure out what accent it was.

And then, abruptly, he couldn't take it anymore. Or maybe he was just tired of lying to himself.

"I'll be right back," he told Jason, and slipped away from his family. Scorpius was already on the train. Draco had hugged him and held his shoulders, gazing solemnly into his eyes, as he told him that he would be proud of him whatever House he went into. He could take a few minutes to do something for himself.

He still wanted to know _why._

"Potter," he said, and it was no effort to make his voice cold as he stepped up behind Harry. "May I speak to you for a moment?"

Harry stiffened, but turned around and nodded, ignoring the curious glances of his wife and friends. "Of course, Malfoy," he said, far more amiably. One had to know him as well as Draco once had to make out the hint of caution beneath the surface.

_Or as well as I thought I did. I didn't know about his cowardice. _

Draco led Harry into a quiet corner of King's Cross Station. That was surprisingly easy to find, now that most of the children were on the train. Their parents gazed at the Express, waving and weeping and snapping photos. No one was interested in tucking themselves into this little dark niche.

Harry folded his arms and lifted his eyebrow. "Yes?" he drawled, when two minutes had passed and Draco had stared at him in silence, waiting for the explanation to begin.

"You fucker," Draco said flatly. "I want to know why you left like that."

"Because," Harry said, "I had vows to keep. And because I couldn't have made you happy." His eyes flickered sideways, and Draco looked with him. Jason stood not far away, a tall man two years younger than Draco, with grey eyes like his, and sharp pure-blood features like his. The major differences were his hair, which was brown crisscrossed with strands of gold, and his generosity and gentleness.

"Not like he can," said Harry, and there was nostalgia in his voice, but none of the regret Draco had hoped to hear. "I was only sexually attracted to you, Draco. I would have spent time with you, but all the time I would have mourned the passing of my marriage with Ginny and fretted about what my children would think of me." He looked back at Draco. His face was peaceful, so peaceful that Draco wondered if ten years had been enough to kill all passion in him. "It worked out for the best. I took myself away so that I would stay faithful to Ginny and so that you would have a chance to find the life you deserved."

Draco shook his head. His tongue was thick in his mouth, and he felt young again, as he hadn't since Harry left—but in a way that dismayed him. His anger and his pain tore through him again, dividing him neatly down the middle.

"You had no right to do that," he said hoarsely. "You can't _know _that we were unsuited to each other. You sacrificed the life we could have had together because you were afraid."

"Yes," Harry said, his eyes brightening for some reason. "I was, and I did. 'Might have been' isn't good enough, not when I knew that I would cause Ginny and my children unhappiness."

"You don't care about me at all," Draco said hollowly. _I've believed that for ten years. Why should it hurt so much now?_

"I didn't," said Harry, and clasped Draco's arm, shaking it slightly. "That's why it's for the best that I left, do you see? I cared more about principle than I did about you. What kind of basis is that for a relationship, Draco? I had to let you go, because you deserved someone who would put you first."

Draco shook his head. Harry's words _sounded _reasonable, but the refrain in his head reminded him that there was no way Harry could have seen the future and _known _that they were wrong for each other. "Infidelity doesn't matter to me," he said. "Astoria and Scorpius both like Jason. They could have come to like you."

"But infidelity matters to _me_," Harry said. "And Ginny would never have come to terms with it—she found it hard enough to forgive me when I told her what had happened between us—and she would have prejudiced James and Al against me." His face softened as he looked back towards his family; Draco looked with him, and saw, mostly, the She-Weasel's vigilant gaze locked on Draco himself. "And Lily never would have been born."

Lily must be his daughter, Draco thought, and though he wondered about Harry's habit of naming his children after dead people, he couldn't care less about the girl. "Is that all worth the loss of what he had?" he demanded harshly.

Harry looked back at him, and took his hand away from Draco's arm. "'What we had' was one quick grope, an Auror partnership that deserved more consideration from both of us, and lust," he said. "I thought about your body, not about you. Can you deny that you did the same?"

And because it was Harry's body and not his mind that he'd missed, Draco whirled away from him and back towards Jason. Jason slung an arm around his shoulders and massaged the nape of his neck slowly, looking back and forth between him and Harry.

"Bad news?" he asked.

"_Old _news," Draco said, and hunched his shoulders against the pressure of Harry's gaze. "Let's go. I want to go home."

And so Jason led him away from what might have been, the might have been that Harry said didn't matter, back to his life of comfort and happiness and love.

*

"I'm proud of you."

Harry let his head rest on Ginny's shoulder as he watched Draco Apparating out of King's Cross. Some people thought it was odd that Harry let his wife support him like that, but those were the people who simply didn't understand. It was no shame to need someone else. Life wasn't a competition, the way that Harry knew it would have become if he'd stayed with Draco. Life was softness, and gentleness, like the softness of Ginny's hair beneath his cheek and her hand running up his cheek.

"Thanks," he murmured, and closed his eyes.

Ginny had been horrified when he told her he'd cheated, but when Harry had mentioned that he'd already asked Kingsley for a transfer to Australia, her tears stopped and she looked up. The image of the hope in her eyes was fixed in Harry's mind. So were her various expressions of happiness over the years as she watched Lily growing, as she taught Albus charms, as they made love in their sheltered bed.

Sometimes he thought Ron knew, too, because he occasionally saw Ron watching him with an expression of approval that nothing else could explain.

His children had never known how close Harry came to losing them, and so they were noisy and irritable and joyous, the unofficial rulers of the household.

And Draco was happy. Harry had read the newspapers—which had exploded in horrified indignation when Draco's affair with Jason Nelson first came out, and then exploded again when Astoria Malfoy refused to be outraged and leave the Manor—and he occasionally asked for reports from people in England who wouldn't suspect the reason for his interest. Harry knew that Draco would never have had the chance for such a peaceful and uneventful life if Harry was his lover, for a whole variety of reasons. Besides, Harry suspected he would have left Draco and begged Ginny to take him back in a few months, which was disrespectful to both of them. Better to leave _with _Ginny, and leave Draco to his life.

And most days, Harry himself didn't regret anything except that moment of initial weakness that had given Draco unrealistic expectations.

_And anyone who asks for more from a world like this is a fool._

**End.**


End file.
